The Snake River or Lewis fork of the Columbia takes its rise in a small lake which is separated by the main range of the Rocky Mountains from the large lakes of the Yellowstone, that being less than twenty miles distant from it. The Yellowstone, the Madison, Jefferson and Gallatin, forming the head waters of the Missouri, and the Snake, the largest tributary fork of the Columbia, all rise within or near the limits of the territory recently dedicated by the Government to the purpose of a National Park.

As contrasted with the large rivers of regions other than the one it traverses, the Snake River would be a very remarkable stream, but there, where everything in nature is wonderful, it is simply one of the marked features in its physical geography. From its source to its junction with the Clarke fork of the Columbia, a distance of nine hundred miles, it flows through a region which, at some remote period, has been the scene of greater volcanic action than any other portion of North America. Unlike other streams, which are formed by rivulets and springs, this river is scarcely less formidable in its appearance at its commencement than at its termination. It leaps into rapids from the moment of its exit, and its waters, blackened by the basaltic bed through which it flows, roar and fret, and lash the sides of the gloomy caÑon which it enters, presenting a scene of tumult and fury, that extends far beyond the limits of vision. This initiatory character it maintains, alternated with occasional reaches of quiet large expansions, and narrow contractions, fearful and tremendous cataracts, to its debouchure into the Columbia. Its channel and its course, alike sinuous, have obtained for it its name. Navigation is impeded by reason of fearful rapids, every few miles of the first five hundred after leaving the lake. The shores for most of the distance are barren rock, always precipitous, often inaccessible from the river, and frequently engorged by lofty mountains and rocky caÑons which shut its inky surface from the light of day. The scenery, though on the most tremendous scale, is savage, unattractive, and frightful. Its waters lash the base of the three Tetons, so celebrated as the great landmarks of this portion of the continent. As they approach the Columbia they break into frequent cataracts, the largest of which, the great Shoshone Fall, with a perpendicular descent of two hundred and fifty feet, presents many points of singular interest.

On the river, twelve miles above its mouth, at a point accessible from the Columbia by small steamboats, stands the little village of Lewiston, which, at the time of which I write, was the capital of all the vast Territory that had been just organized under the euphonic name of Idaho. This Territory then included Montana and Wyoming, which had not been organized. Lewiston, being the nearest accessible point by water to the recently discovered gold placers of Elk City, Oro Fino, Florence, and Warner Creek, grew with the rapidity known only to mining towns into an emporium. In less than three months from the time the first immigrants commenced to establish a settlement there, several streets of more than a mile in length were laid out, thickly covered on either side with dwellings, stores, hotels, and saloons, chiefly constructed of common factory cotton. A tenement of this kind could be extemporized in a few hours. The frame was of light scantling or poles, and the cloth in most cases fastened to it with tacks. Seen from a distance, the town had the appearance of being built of white marble, but truly

for upon entering it the fragility of the material soon disabused the vision and the admiration of the beholder. At night, when lights were burning in these frail tenements, a stranger would think the town illuminated. The number of drinking and gambling saloons was greatly in excess of stores and private dwellings, and to nearly all of these was attached that most important attraction of a mining town, the hurdy-gurdy. The sound of the violin which struck the ear on entering the street, was never lost while passing through it, and at many of the saloons the evidence of the bacchanal orgies which were in progress inside was often apparent in the eagerness exhibited by the crowd which surrounded the building without. The voices of auctioneers on the street corners, the shouts of frequent horsemen as they rode up and down the streets, the rattle of vehicles arriving and departing for the miners’ camps, troops of miners, Indians, gamblers, the unmeaning babble of numerous drunken men, the tawdrily apparelled dancing women of the hurdy-gurdys, altogether presented a scene of life in an entirely new aspect to the person who for the first time entered a mining town. It is a feature of modern civilization which cannot elsewhere be found, search the whole world over. The thirst for gold is shared by all classes. Those who are unwilling to labor, in their efforts to obtain it by less honorable means, flock to the mines to ply their guilty vocations. Hence there is no vice unrepresented in a mining camp, and no type or shade of character in civilized society that is not there publicly developed. The misfortune is, as a general thing, that the worst elements, being most popular, generally preponderate.

Our Civil War was raging at the time that Lewiston became a mining emporium. Sympathizers with each party fled to the mines, to escape the possible responsibilities they might incur by remaining in the States. They carried their political views with them, and identified themselves with those portions of society which reflected their respective attachments. Loyalty and Secession each flourished by turn, and were the prolific causes of frequent bloody dissensions. There was no law to restrain human passion, so that each man was a law unto himself, according as he was swayed by the evil or good of his own nature. The temptations to evil, not so numerous, were much more powerful than were ever before presented to a great majority of the immigrants. Gambling and drinking were made attractive by the presence of debased women, who lured to their ruin all who, fortunate in the possession of gold, could not withstand their varied devices.

In the Spring of 1861, among the daily arrivals at Lewiston, was a man of gentlemanly bearing and dignified deportment, accompanied by a woman, to all appearance his wife. He took quarters at the best hotel in town. Before the close of the second day after his arrival his character as a gambler was fully understood, and in less than a fortnight his abandonment of his female companion betrayed the illicit connection which had existed between them. Alone, among strangers, destitute, the poor woman told how she had been beguiled, by the promises of this man, from home and family, and induced to link herself with his fortunes. A fond husband and three helpless children mourned her loss by a visitation worse than death. Lacking moral courage to return to her heart-broken husband and ask forgiveness, she sought to drown her sorrow by plunging still deeper into the abyss of shame and ruin. Soon, alas! she became one of the lowest inmates of a frontier brothel. This latest crime of Henry Plummer was soon forgotten, or remembered only as one of many similar events which occur in mining camps.

He, meanwhile, in the pursuit of his profession as a gambler, formed the acquaintance of many congenial spirits. From their subsequent operations it was also apparent that at his instigation an alliance was formed with them which had for its object the attainment of fortune by the most desperate means. Every fortunate man in any of the mining camps was marked as the prey, sooner or later, of this abandoned combination. Every gambler or rough infesting the camp, either voluntarily or by threats was induced to unite in the enterprise; and thus originated the band of desperadoes which, for the succeeding two years, by their fearful atrocities, spread such terror through the northern mines. Plummer was their acknowledged leader.

Professional gamblers everywhere, in a new country, form a community by themselves. They have few intimates outside of their own number. A sort of tacit understanding among them links them together by certain implied rules and regulations, which they readily obey. Of the same nature, we may suppose, was the bond which united Plummer and his associates in their infernal designs of plunder and butchery. The honor which thieves accord each other, the prospect of unlimited reward for their vicious deeds, and the certainty of condign punishment for any act of treachery, secured the band and its purposes against any betrayal by its members.

Nowhere are the conventionalities of social life sooner abandoned than in a mining camp. To call a man by his proper name there generally implies that he is either a stranger or one with whom you do not care to make acquaintance. The gamblers were generally known by diminutive surnames or appellations significant of their characters. I shall so designate those of them who were thus known, in this narrative.

Prominent among the associates of Plummer at Lewiston were Jack Cleveland, Cherokee Bob, and Bill Bunton. Cleveland was an old California acquaintance, familiar with Plummer’s early history. He used this fatal knowledge, as it afterwards proved, in a dictatorial and offensive manner, often presuming upon it to arrogate a position in the band which by common consent was assigned to Plummer.

Cherokee Bob was a native Georgian, and received his name from the fact that he was a quarter-blood Indian. He was bitter in his hatred of the loyal cause and all engaged in it. Before he came to Lewiston he had, in an affray of his own plotting, killed two or three soldiers in the Walla Walla theatre. He fled to Lewiston to escape the vengeance of their comrades.

Bill Bunton was a double-dyed murderer and notorious horse and cattle thief. He had killed a man at a ball near Walla Walla, was tried for murder, and acquitted on insufficient evidence. He afterwards killed his brother-in-law, and in cold blood soon after shot down an Indian, and escaped the clutches of the law by flight. Possessing himself of a ranche on Pataha Creek, he lived there with his Indian wife, under the pretext of farming. It was soon ascertained, however, that his business was secreting and selling stolen stock. The officers made a dash upon his ranche, but the bird had again flown. Soon afterward, disguised in the blanket and paint of an Indian, he entered Lewiston, and lounged about the streets for several days without exciting suspicion. During this time he became a member of Plummer’s murderous band.

There were several others whose names are unknown, that entered into the combination formed for systematized robbery and murder at this time. Around this nucleus a large number of desperate men afterwards gathered. They became so formidable in numbers, and their deeds of blood were so frequent and daring, that the mining camps were awed by them into tacit submission, and witnessed without even remonstrance the perpetration of murders and robberies in their very midst, of the most revolting character.